Don't you know I have issues with taking compliments? Now I feel compelled to like, insult myself a lot. Or scan my junior high yearbook photos. Or maybe just go ahead punch myself in the eye. Anything to balance out the niceness, that I swear (POSSESSED PINKY-FINGER SWEAR!) I wasn't fishing for, nor did I ever expect in such massive quantities.

Anyway. Yesterday was one of those things I just needed to write down and throw out there, and I started to feel better almost as soon as I hit "publish." (I actually, in all seriousness, went back to delete it about 10 minutes later, but then the nice comments were already pouring in, and WHO AM I TO DENY THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE?) (PARTICULARLY WHEN THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE = SAYING NICE THINGS ABOUT ME.)

(I am once again friends with parentheses and caps lock, in case you were wondering.)

What amused me mostly, however, was just how many of you said something along the lines of "you could write about [something dumb and boring] and I'd still read it."

Well, in the interest of science, I say: WE'LL JUST SEE ABOUT THAT. HA!

Here are the topics suggested by various good-looking commenters in that very fashion, accompanied by my blatant abuse of your loyal reading eyeballs:

MY KITCHEN SPONGE

A REPORT BY AMY BETH CORBETT, AGE NINE

My kitchen sponge is blue. We use it to clean many things like pots and things. It is full of holes like an English Muffin.

One time I used the kitchen sponge when it was my turn to clean the bathroom and then put it back in the kitchen and my mom got mad and yelled at me when she found out later that I'd used it on the toilet.

Real sponges come from the ocean. My kitchen sponge came from the Acme.

WATCHING PAINT DRY

We never repainted our kitchen after we remodeled it last summer. Our real estate agent has suggested that maybe we better get on that. I would very much like for someone else to get on that and am in fact fully planning to hire a professional to paint it, despite the fact that our kitchen is the size of a postage stamp and the walls will probably require like, seven strokes of a paintbrush.

(Heh. Strokes.)WATCHING GRASS GROW

I would write about this topic now, but I think I'm going to save it for after we buy a house and the full reality of yardwork hits me like a ton of lawnmowers.

POOP, DROOL, SCREAMING, PUKE, & GYMBOREE

New tagline, anyone?

"I Had a Bowl of Captain Crunch for Breakfast"

I do not like Captain Crunch. Mostly because of the word "crunchberries," which come on. Doesn't it totally make you think of like, dried crusty boogers?

No? Well, I bet it will now. MWA HA HA.

MY BIG TOE

Okay, let's be honest here. Does anyone else have hair on their big toe? And does anyone else maybe occasionally shave that hair off?

Y's BOOBSYvonne's rack is magnificent, and she's got more cleavage than you can shake a beeflog at.

TAKING A LEAK

Um, ew? `

Although...wait. I already DID talk about taking a leak, albeit an implied leak, in that entry about Ceiba falling in the toilet. (TWICE.) See? This blog hit rock bottom AGES ago.DRYER LINT

Have you ever wondered if you're a crazy religious nutjob or a crazy liberal doomed to forever burn in hell?

Wonder no more, for I have devised a simple personality test to tell you for sure!

Face of Satan? Or Missing Link?

*also, for everybody wondering where the hell poor old MaxCat is, the above picture should put your minds at ease that he is alive and well and as sheddy as ever.

MARSHMALLOW FLUFF & PINWHEELS

Okay, so I wasn't sure if Ivie chose these two things randomly, or if they went together in some way, on purpose, so I Googled them. And indeed, there a couple recipes for marshmallow fluff pinwheels. Mostly involving JELL-O brand gelatin.

I am not going to comment on the JELL-O and marshmallow fluff pinwheels, as I learned my lesson ages ago about poking fun at cherished family recipes involving JELL-O. (And that lesson is: Dave Barry will link to you and five million bazillion people will come to your site on the exact same day you decide to write about a thrush infection in your boobs.)

However, I also found something called "Candle Salad," which involves: a plate of lettuce, one pineapple ring, one upright banana stuck in said pineapple ring, all topped off with a cherry and marshmallow fluff for that special, ultra-appetizing "melted wax" look.

Comments

There is totally a clay recipe for dryer lint. There is a whole freaking page dedicated to it's useage! I actually did this with my kids many years ago when I was frantically trying to find a craft using things I had in the house when it was raining. We had freaking lint "sculptures" everwhere. http://www.users.vance.net/tprewitt/lint.htm

I liked this post a lot. A stream of consciousness yet somehow it all seemed relevant.
1) Did your parents name you ABC on purpose or did they just really like the names Amy Beth and decide to just go for it? Despite what I post under (because there are so many of us!) I am Amy Jeanine.
2) Y, your comments are at least 50 percent of why I read through every comment on here, even when there are over 300. I don't want to miss a moment of your genius. And when you and Amalah had the meat war, well, the combined genius nearly made me explode.
3) I too get the random dark hair that I must tweeze off my boobs. I'm not a fan of those.
4) I have shaved my toe hair and plucked. Plucking hurts more.

Thankfully, though I am talented, I am only so talented, and therefore I only did that once (knock on wood!). I have no idea how, but it healed completely, it was like a lizard or something that grew its tail back. My future children will be grateful, and nobody has to know. Well, nobody except the whole internet now and my mom, who was very nice and never mentioned it again after it happened, allowing me to continue to be Miss I'm Too Grown For You.
I have had multiple incidents shaving (me+razors=bad), but that was the worst one.

Yay! Yay for Amalah and Y for liberating us from our dark and hairy closets where we were hiding our dirty, hairy secrets.

I am getting spider veins on my thighs. WTF? I'm 28!

Some girl-- that is totally awesome. Once I was trying to shave "down there" and I totally sliced way between the legs. Just a small cut. But OMG. I was bleeding and I thought I was going to die and I called my husband and told him so.

Oooh, julianna. I've done something like that, too (I can't believe I'm sharing this with the internet, but really, it's horrifying). I was, er, trimming the hedges with scissors (what kind of idiot does that??? oh yeah, me.) and actually snipped off a bit of the more tender parts (not any of the essentials, thank goodness). It was probably the most horrifying moment of my life. Ever since I've been unable to bring a cutting instrument anywhere near.

I also once shaved all the skin off the front of my shin bone. I had a very thin, six-inch long strip of skin missing from my leg. The best part was that this was during soccer season. Do you know how much fun it was to get kicked in the shins and to have to soak off my shin guards every night? It took months to heal.

Just to keep this on the scientific side, I monitored my amusement level and noted the specific words at which it peaked while reading under each heading. I'll withhold a full report to preserve space, but highlights:Sponge: The "English Muffin" simile had me.Grass: "But she doesn't have a yard ye... oh."Cpt. Crunch Peak point was "crunchberries," because I love people grumbling about stupid marketing-created names; whichever form their grumbling eventually takes is fine.Dryer Lint: The novelty of creating a Rorschach Test out of lint is part of what makes this weblog stand out.

Conclusion: Amy can write about anything she does choose to write about and manage to be entertaining, engaging, or both. Moreover, these researchers (by which I mean me) do by no means feel Amy is under an obligation to them to provide such entertainment or engagement should she not choose to.

Actually, that second Jello recipe you linked called "The Green Dessert"? We call it "Mormon Salad" since it's been handed down through my Mormon family for like, ever. And I serve it every SINGLE Thanksgiving. My husband hates it. What is to hate about pistachio pudding, cottage cheese, and cool whip??? Some people have no taste. ;)

Heh. I was watching that Joan Collins show thing and there was this guy on there who was terrified of women with hairy toes, or just feet in general. And, um, yes. I've felt embarassed about it ever since I was in high school and this girl said "OMG DID YOU KNOW SO AND SO SHAVES THEIR TOES" and OH LORD.

S'ok, Ame, we all get stuck in a rut sometimes. Glad to see I'm not the only person who is fascinated with dryer lint. The layers! And it's all different colors! You could study the layers like tree rings to see the history of your last few washes (whites, dark, something red, etc).

First of all, God bless you Cobweb for linking to that picture, because that gave me the biggest laugh of the weekend!

Second, Amy, you have got to get that 1950s cookbook from Jen and do the photo essay--I'm dying to see the Mickey Mouse-esque pears.

And last but not least, thanks for NOTHING!! I am so crazy hooked on lonelygirl15 right now, it's not even funny. Girl, I am DYING to know what happens on October 12--apparently that's what all the people in the "know" are saying is going to be the ceremony... creepy! (Oh, and really last this time--have you seen the cassieiswatching videos? Those are truly scary--like Blair Witch Project scary!)

I'm with you on the toes...THANK GOD I'm not alone! I've been worried about that for well, I guess the 25 or so years I've been shaving!

As for the paint drying and grass growing, don't make fun. My whole friggin' blog is about that kind of nonsense; but I don't get near the readership you do. I'm what you call a "niche blogger". Mostly because I'm not nearly brave or talented enough to write about my actual life, so I keep the sarcasm hinged to my house.

Anyway, I'm w/ everyone else. Write about what you want to write about. Kid, no kid, dreaming of no kid, dreaming of more kids, dreaming of dreaming. I believe you'd make just about any subject put a smile on my face!

Well I never thought I'd read a crap post on your usually spectacular site - but hell, here you went and did it!! I'm really glad I was reading the day Amalah jumped the shark - can you get back to your regular posts now please? We need you out here!

I'm not sure which disturbs me more. That I have a an entire book from the 70's with jello recipes and that candle jello is not included (which can only lead me to believe that the horror that is that book does not contain all the frightening things that people can do with jello) or that I actually started at that ball of lint and still cannot see anything but the face of my ex-husband.